2011/Notes/Influencing CEOs Becoming CEOs
Influencing CEOs, Becoming CEOs Participants provided inputs based on the following questions: What is a leader? *A leader is able to make people feel like they belong to a group and motivate the group members to act together. *Someone that others respect and look to for guidance. Someone who is trusted. *A person who is capable of having and communicating a vision, and attracting others to help create the vision *A visionary tasked with making directional changes and who ideally takes responsibility for those choices *One who is able to motivate others to make progress against a shared vision or mission *One who polarizes people to certain action *One who provides a guiding ideology *A leader defines culture and helps to motivate others to build in accordance with that culture *Strategic *Long and short-term vision / plans *Ability to make tough decisions & sacrifices for best of whole *Ability to get people pulling in the same direction *Leaders inspire and motivate action *Someone who inspires others to follow them What is an executive? *Someone who enacts / executes on decisions *Executives have omain-specific power and responsibility *Command & control (even if illusory) *$$ *Upper level management *Works on bigger scale projects *A leader charged with executing to achieve the company's mission *One who is intimately involved in the guidance, oversight, and direction of business activities *One who provides leadership to the company *One who listens to stakeholders *An executive is someone with operational decision-making capability / empowerment *An implementer of those decisions both with and without responsibility for them *A leader that has been recognized by the organization as being of high value / impact *No idea. Someone in a suit and a corporate car. I tend to think of them as out of touch. *I don't have a good answer for this one. What is blocking me in my journey of growth as a leader? *Past: Personal disagreement with select superiors *Present: Time and financial resources when deparing said superiors *The number of hours in a day *Limited resources (budget, human, etc.) *Understanding how to define and build the appropriate culture *Building rapport and goodwill *No openings *No process for training and development *Company not as focused on training staff to move -- but bring in more outside talent *Still working on my own self-development *Persuasion skills *Lack of experience and knowledge *Communication skills *Getting across my vision *Changing roles and copanies to grow, but not being able to get hired into the next highest rung. At my firm, the jump to "Director" and higher is significant *Self-effacement? What makes me qualified? I feel like a fraud. The closest I get to feeling like an effective leader is that I sometimes have insights about direction that others don't seem to have. *I want to lead an organization I didn't create Concepts that triggered further discussion *autonomy *accountability *responsibility *authority *influence *manipulation *performance *compensation *leverage Resources *Book: Primal Leadership *Book: Quiet Leadership *Book: Tribal Leadership *Book: Leadership and Self-Deceptiong